If your child is between the ages of 12-16, we are seeking their involvement in an important study that will help us to understand more about how young people spend their free time. This will help us to identify which activities affect young people’s health and wellbeing.

Will my child’s answers to these questionnaires be kept private?

All data will be kept confidential. No personal information (name or identification number) will be recorded in this research and no information about individuals will be given to the schools that participate. All data will be processed anonymously. The results of this study might be presented online or in a scientific journal, but the data is not traceable to an individual.

What does participation involve?

Children will be asked to fill out an online questionnaire every evening for a week in which they will answer questions about how they spent their leisure time during that day. This will take around 15 minutes to complete. Before the children start, we will ask them once a series of questions about other aspects of their lives such as their friendships, mood, and bullying. This will take about 30 minutes to complete.

Your child’s participation in this survey is voluntary. If you agree to them participating in this study, you or your child can indicate at any time that you wish to withdraw, without having to give an explanation.

How can I help?

If your child’s school has been invited to participate in the research, a letter with a consent form will have been given to you by your child’s teacher, or you can download it here from the website. Depending on the age of you child, we may also need your consent for your child to take part in this study. Please refer to the consent form for more information.

What if I have more questions?

If you need more information about the study, you could send an email to this address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Project lead: Prof. Carolien Rieffe This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

After winning the Best Thesis in the field Otorhinolaryngology, our former PhD researcher Anouk Netten also won the Best Paper prize of 2019 in the same field. Anouk’s paper focuses on the underreporting of missing data and how to tackle those problems with the multiple imputation technique. Click here to read the English version of the paper. Congratulations, Anouk!

Despite the coronavirus outbreak, our weekly research meetings continue online. This week the meeting was led by Tirza, who presented on missing data and the benefits of using multiple imputation to minimize biases.

Although many real-time activities for the World Autism Awareness Week (March 28 to April 5) are now canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak, online activities and news continue. Besides awareness, the Autism Awareness Week also aims at increasing understanding and acceptance. Autism is often associated with 'socially inappropriate' behaviors and less motivation for prosocial actions. But is that picture correct? Now all schools are closed. Yet, when schools reopen, what about equal opportunity for autistic children in mainstream education? In this news item , Carolien talks about prosocial behaviors and the need for social contacts in autistic children. And in this blog article, Carolien, Dr. Sarah Giest, and Legal Advisor Pim Deul reflect on school inclusion and the 2014 Dutch Appropriate Education Act for autistic pupils.

On March 3rd, Adva, Anne, Laura, Maud and Liam launched a special project to increase playfulness of children at school playgrounds. With the instruction of our project advisor Martin van Rooijen (University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht), this project is based on loose-parts play, which aims to provide children with increased opportunities for creative play and positive social interactions. Children showed spontaneous enthusiasm for the loose parts, such as wheels, baskets and wooden boards, as soon as encountering them at the playground.

Recent & Upcoming Events

June 18th 13.00-14.30: Webinar on Sensors

June 12th 11.00-13.00: Master Class on Factor Analysis

April 2nd: BNNVARA podcast “Echte Oogappels"

Neeltje was recently featured in the local newspaper Leidsch Dagblad and the VHZ online magazine for professionals on her research on children with Developmental Language Disorder and their psychosocial problems. Click here and here to check it out!

Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) often experience more internalizing symptoms, such as social anxiety. However, very little is known about the factors that protect children with DLD from developing such symptoms.

Archive

Who are we?

Our team is located at the department of Developmental Psychology of Leiden University in the Netherlands. We work in close collaboration with the ENT department of the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS), Governance, Inter-PSY Groningen, TU Delft Architecture, and University of Twente. Our group is dedicated to examining the emotional development of children and adolescents of all walks of life. We have a strong focus on the functionality of emotions, and its impact on children's social development on the one hand; and on social inclusion and appreciating diversity on the other hand. Besides typically developing children and adolescents, we are interested in the development of those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, with autism spectrum disorders, or with specific language impairments.

On this site we regularly post news items about new publications, events, and so on. You can also read more about our ongoing projects, read about and download questionnaires we have developed, see an overview of our publications per topic, or read about opportunities for students to join our team.